They word their press release like they're "bringing freedom back", but in actuality they're taking away the regulations that prevent major telecoms from slowing down/charging more for whatever traffic they want. Small sites like SportsHawaii can survive because of the ability to compete with larger sites, we don't have to pay 'more' to get the same internet accessibility as the biggest sites. The freedom for people to generate, and consume whatever content they want on the internet is what is being put at risk, and being replaced with the freedom for telecoms to squeeze additional money out of consumers, content creators, or both.

This is in no way related to any political party, all I'm asking is for everyone to please be aware of what your government and especially the people voted in from your district/locale is doing. If they are doing things against your self-interest, be knowledgeable about it, let your community know, and hold them accountable.

I've posted a comment to the FCC site last week, good to see that several hundred thousand did the same in the past few days.
If you want to do the same you can do so by clicking the following url: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/proceed ... ((17-108)) , click +Express and fill out the form.

On a related note, a similar thing happened earlier this year which most people probably don't know or care about. The bill Senate Joint Resolution 34, ( https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/sjres34 / https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-con ... on/34?r=21 ) came up for vote and I started doing preliminary research (reading the bill, gathering info) and before I could post anything, the bill was signed into law without much coverage by much news sites. What this bill does is dismantle the consumer protections set by the FCC set in 2016 with their document "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services" ( https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attac ... A1_Rcd.pdf ). This means as of March 30th, 2017 telecoms can legally look at your internet traffic and sell targeted advertisements to you, or even worse, can also sell this information about you to others.

Let me break this down for you into bite-size terms since I have over a couple decades of working experience dealing with all parts of the internet from websites & programming, down to servers, down to networks.

If you think google, amazon, and facebook ads are 'almost scary' now since they know so much about what you search for, buy online, and 'like' - telecoms can now get all the exact same data, from all three companies without even being part of the transaction (search/purchase/like) and put it on your record. If you have GPS turned on on your phone, your phone (google, facebook, apple, maps, or some other app) may be transmitting this location data to their own servers. This means telecoms could now also have a running record about where you're going throughout your day (every day) even though you're not even actually browsing the internet. Everything you type into a search box, they know you're interested in this topic. The music you listen to, if it downloads album covers to your phone, recorded. By visiting SportsHawaii.com, they know you have a personal interest in Hawaii and Sports, the topics you read and post about the most will tell them which sports you like the most. Every post you make on facebook, likes you drop on instagram, or even messages you slide into someone's DMs could potentially be cataloged if it's not encrypted end-to-end. Every site you visit and every app you use is being added into a running log of your record and after a while, if they have smart enough people to take advantage of this personal data, they will have a better understanding of you than you even have of yourself. The very worst part is you can't opt out of this. Using SSL (https://) doesn't mean you're info is safe, that just encrypts the pages contents from server to your browser. Take a look at the long URL your browser shows the next time you're using https, all that is sent over the internet unencrypted. Also using 'incognito mode'/'private window' in your browser stops google/facebook/amazon and most sites from tracking you because it takes tracking cookies out of the situation, but this doesn't stop telecoms from taking this info because you're still using 'the internet'. They know exactly which computer/device, went to which website, and it is now on your running record, as of Mar 30.

well, it just passed no matter how unpopular it is. it's now legal to charge website creators more to visit their content, and also legal to charge internet users more to view that content. the only group that benefits from this are telecoms, who in recent history were subsidized by the government to setup a lot of these broadband lines in the first place.

I'd like to thank the current government for looking out for the best interest of a tiny (already very profitable) corporate group, giving them the freedom to legally adjust the internet speeds for anyone they want. with the direct purpose of taking even more money away from those terrible large companies, horrible small businesses, and dirty consumers.

Before 2015 we didn't have Net Neutrality, the internet was fine. Net Neutrality gave the government control of the internet, and the president the power to pull the plug on websites he/she doesn't agree with. I don't know about you, but the less the governments in my business, the better.

Before 2015 we didn't have Net Neutrality, the internet was fine. Net Neutrality gave the government control of the internet, and the president the power to pull the plug on websites he/she doesn't agree with. I don't know about you, but the less the governments in my business, the better.

not really, in 2013/2014 both verizon and comcast throttled netflix for a few months and all of their customers experienced choppy movies, or long waits for movies to start until netflix and the company came to "an undisclosed financial agreement". or in 2012 when at&t blocked iphones from using facetime (video chat) unless the customer subscribed to a special internet plan putting the financial costs on the consumer.

To put this in layman's terms, in the first scenario the telecom closed half the pipes between them and "Company A" until they paid them a special fee, then opened them back up. In the second scenario, the telecom closed a pipe between them and "Customer A" unless they paid them a special monthly fee.

Net Neutrality doesn't give the president the power to pull plugs on websites. Here's a quick simplified breakdown of what it is:
There's a federal law called the Communications Act of 1934 ( https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf ). It sets standards, rates and fees for telegraph, radio, tv, and telephone to makes sure that it is freely available to all people in the united states for reasons of national secuirity, commerce, freedoms, etc. The Internet, the modern day communications medium was added to the list of protected communications in 2015 and with December's repeal it is no longer protected. So just expect a lot more pre-2015 scenarios happening all around the internet where companies and consumers get screwed by telecoms unless they fork up extra dough, because hey, it's now legal.